Apple Green Eyes
by Britta Laveshe
Summary: Hermione looks into the Mirror of Erised and sees... [Slash fic]


Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its affiliates belong to Joanne Katherine Rowling.  
  
A/N: Well the not-so-famous Bowie's Leper Messiah has decided to upload a fan fic that she wrote the night before. My friend (Blue Crayon) had a wretched case of * pause for dramatic effect* Writer's Block. So being the brilliant and clever things we are, we came up with a random story idea and both wrote up our ideas. *pause for collective gasps of awe* By the by, the idea was 'Hermione looked into the Mirror of Erised and...'  
  
Apple Green Eyes  
  
By Bowie's Leper Messiah  
  
As Head Girl, you were allowed a certain freedom concerning the subject of a curfew, but Hermione Granger doubted that even her Head Girl duties would get her out of a detention, or at least a point loss for prowling the hallowed halls of the highly esteemed and somewhat eccentric Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
  
It was three am, and after four hours of tossing and turning, Hermione had decided to do something wild for once in her straight-backed, tight-laced life. She didn't care to touch upon the subject that in her previous years she had assisted Harry Potter numerous times and broken many rules in the process...  
  
She sighed deeply, and drew her cloak tighter around her form as she walked the same corridor for the second or so time. It was cold and clammy being out and about in a medieval castle, during winter, in the middle of the night. It wasn't anything like how those dime a dozen Muggle romance novelists might describe while their heroine (a certainly more beautiful subject than Hermione posed) ran around seducing the equally handsome hero.  
  
Hermione's mind reared back at the thought of seducing a man and she wandered off to more pressing but equally unwanted subjects.  
  
Her logical mind, rather more Ravenclaw suited, was trying to force herself to acknowledge the reason of her unrest was because of Ron. Ronald Weasley, current Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He apparently thought it to be a bright idea to ask Hermione out on a date. At least that was what she had deciphered from his stammers and pauses.  
  
"Why on earth does he need to complicate things?" Hermione muttered angrily, but being sure to keep her voice down. Wouldn't do well to attract the attention of Mrs. Norris, or Snape.  
  
She growled softly. Where did he get it in his head to go asking her out, and when did she give him and idea she might feel the same about him? Not that she didn't like him of course, their lives had been endangered multiple times, with Harry also, and in fact, she had come to love Ron. In a brotherly way. And Harry too. But she just couldn't fathom dating Ron. Or any other of the boys who had asked her out over her last few years at Hogwarts (even back home in Brixton too). True she had gone to the cinema with Lucas, one of her neighbors, and that she had gone to the Yule Ball with Viktor, but there hadn't been anything more.  
  
Frankly, Hermione was confused.  
  
Lavender and Parvati, and even Ginny, were fairly obsessed or at least interested in boys. So why wasn't she? To cover her confusion over the past few years, Hermione had immersed herself heartily into her studies, earning O.W.L.s in nearly all her classes and advancing herself to the position of Head Girl. Professor McGonagall even had high hopes for Hermione becoming an Animagus.  
  
But even with all these successes and praise, she somehow felt...empty. In fact, right at the moment she would have given all her O.W.L.s and her Head Girl badge for some insight into herself.  
  
Her train of thought was derailed as a even more pressing matter presented itself in the form of someone running at full tilt down the corridor that led into her own.  
  
With reflexes Harry the Quidditch Seeker would be proud of, Hermione dived through a door opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. She slammed the door shut, praying that the late night marathon runner wouldn't come in. She held her breath as the footsteps slowed and then stopped in front of the door.  
  
"My sweet, where did the little cretin run off to now?" An out-of-breath voice rasped. It was obviously the caretaker, Argus Filch, speaking to his cat.  
  
Relief flooded her as sweet as taking a deep gulp of fresh air when the shuffling footsteps continued past the door and down the corridor. Hermione's knees went weak and she struggled to stay upright.  
  
With the presence of imminent danger gone, Hermione cast a look around the room she found herself in. Immediately she recognized she was in the Room of Requirement. Although it was drastically different from when she came during the Dumbledore's Army days. Instead of numerous Dark Detectors and books on defensive magic there were several lamps that gave off a pleasing glow, a spindly wicker chair, a bookcase...and a towering gilt mirror.  
  
As if drawn like a moth to the flame, Hermione walked to where the mirror was. Odd words in a language Hermione didn't know were engraved along the top of the mirror's frame.  
  
"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." Hermione read aloud, and then slapped her forehead. "It isn't a language...it's written backwards. How fitting for a mirror. 'I show not you face but your hearts' desire.'" She mused aloud.  
  
"My hearts' desire, how interesting..." As she glanced down from the words and into the mirror itself she gasped and took several steps back.  
  
In it was her own reflection, but she was wearing white dress robes and looked ten years older, there were faint laugh lines at her eyes and lips, and her hair was short with small flowers in it. Hermione reached with trembling fingers to touch her own hair, and was relieved to find that it was still the same length at the base of her back.  
  
Curiosity asserted itself and she took a few more steps closer to inspect the mirror's reflection.  
  
Her older self was standing under a white terrace with rose vines growing on it, there was a priest there, dressed in purple robes with silver stars and with a jolt she recognized him as none other than Professor Dumbledore.  
  
But the most startling thing was a woman her own age, with apple green and eyes and long fair hair pulled up and decorated with flowers like Hermione's. And like Hermione, she was also dressed in white dress robes. The two people were laughing and holding hands, with tears of joy in their eyes. As Hermione looked, she saw her friends and family standing around in the background, crying, laughing and waving.  
  
With a jolt, Hermione realized she was looking at her own wedding. Her heart's deepest desire. And she was marrying a woman. Her transfixed state shattered and Hermione backed away from the mirror, tears pricking at her eyes. She turned and burst out of the door to the Room of Requirement and ran down the corridor, not caring about Filch or detention.  
  
She didn't stop until she was standing in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, panting and clutching at a stitch in her side, with tears running down her face.  
  
"Nightingale!" She choked out and the portrait swung open, allowing Hermione to dash through where she collapsed onto a couch and curled up in a ball.  
  
When her crying ceased, she stared at the dying flames with glassy eyes, her breath hitching every once in awhile.  
  
And in her deepest of thoughts, she wanted to stand at the altar with the woman with apple green eyes. 


End file.
